Chained Fate
by Tenial
Summary: A short story during Ocarina of Time: Link is the Hero of Time, but would time matter if he could save his parents through a gap in time?


**Chained Fate**

_A Short Story About Fate and Duty  
_

_Set during the events of the story of The Ocarina of Time._

* * *

He only remembered two things that happened that night. The first was his mother's face against the stormy skies. The second was the Great Deku Tree looking over him.

When the Deku Sprout told him his story, Link had a change of viewpoint. Just a few weeks ago he was only ten years old. Now he had two new facts to contend with.

Initially, for his entire life up to this point, he was raised as a Kokiri, a fairy child of the Lost Woods, by the Great woodland guardian Deku Tree, up to his tenth birthday. Just a small boy, his future was changed by the Great Deku's death by Gohma, the arachnid monster, sent by the Thief King Ganondorf, in order to attain a holy relic from the sage tree. Although Link attempted to save the guardian's life, his efforts were partly in vain. The only assurance of the goodness of his deeds was the quest beset upon him by the Deku Tree: to take the holy relic to Zelda, the Princess of the land of Hyrule.

The quest then began a seven year voyage across the land of Hyrule, and through time. Seven years had passed since the Deku's death, and finally Link returned home, a grown young man, and saved his village once again from darkness. In advent to Link saving the forest, the Great Deku Tree's place now had a new sapling, and this very being explained Link's heritage, knowing because the forest remembered his mother and her story.

He was the son of a brave soldier, whose wife held no lesser bravery. At the time of his infancy, Link's father was called to duty in protecting the throne, for an insurrection by traitors in the kingdom was underway. The castle was the main target, and the traitors arrived by surprise.

Explosive charges shook the foundations of the royal castle. Everyone gathered their important things and fled. Link was important to his parents, and was all they needed to take.

Then Link remembered his father's death as the Sapling explained it to him. His father managed to fight his way back to his family, and was escorting them to the stables. Once they attained horses, they were riding for safety, and watched the castle burn to the ground.

The traitors were now chasing the fugitives. Link's parents took flight, him in the arms of his mother when the unexpected happened.

They were just outside the Lost Woods, heading for Lake Hylia. Suddenly, a horrendous clash of lightning struck the air, and there was no sound for a moment. The horses jumped, going in circles and shrieking. Link's mother could barely control her own horse as it bolted here and there.

Then a sound of flesh being penetrated. His mother looked back, and saw her husband, with a blank look in his eyes, fall of his horse from an arrow to the back. The impact from falling off then killed him instantly.

She let out a horrid yell before a traitor's arrow pierced her shoulder.

Harried by pain and fear, his mother made a leap of faith and pressed on through the woods, hoping that some thing would have pity upon herself and her child. Her faith was rewarded when the traitor became lost, and she came upon the Kokiri Village. From there, as she lay dying, her life passed before her eyes, and the forest was witness to what she saw and remembered.

Link's faith in staying true to his quest was now rewarded by the story of his family told.

And when his task in the village was done, Link carried on with his quest to rescue the sages of Hyrule.

* * *

She fell to the ground. Upon impact, the colors of her hair and body kept changing and switching like multiple lights going on and off, and her identity was bisecting into her two, elderly selves again.

Link stayed at the ready, his shield protecting him, and approached the now dying Twinrova sisters, Koume and Kotake.

They coughed, breathing heavily as the life slowly drained from their bodies.

Nabooru's eyes opened, and saw the two sisters dying and Link approaching them. Awed and horrified at the same time, she painfully moved away from the scene. The memory of what those sister did to her still harassed her mind.

Link glared at the two sisters. They were the reason why the world was in darkness.

The blue witch, Koume, choked laughter.

The red witch, Kotake, her sister, looked at her oddly.

Link himself grew suspicious. He raised the Master Sword threateningly.

Koume looked at him pitifully, and laughed again. "That's just what we need… that very sword indeed!"

Link's hand suddenly trembled. What were they planning?

Kotake's eyes widened. "Indeed…"

Koume looked at her expectantly.

Kotake grinned. "And I still have it!" And she reached into her coat and pulled out a golden crystal.

Link's eyes widened. It was not a crystal, but a fragment.

_Of the Triforce._

Kotake knew what he was going to do and stopped him with a repulsive spell sending him backwards. Then, she and Koume began uttering in the old tongue, with Nabooru realizing what they were doing by what they spoke.

"LAZEL!" they both shouted, and the golden fragment flew out of Kotake's hand and levitated in the middle of the room, and shone brilliantly more and more, emitting a deafening ring at first, and then followed by a clash, like lightning.

Link's shield saved his eyes. The light began to dim, and so he took his chance to see where the light was coming from. Then his jaw dropped.

Where the fragment used to float stood what looked like a window where, from the sides, light streamed and glowed erratically, but in the midst of the window was a different world altogether.

In that world, a storm raged. Lightning clashed. In the far distance, a castle was burning to the ground.

His parents were trying to control their frantic horses, while a traitor was coming upon them.

"NO!" Link shouted at once. He could see the traitor. In fact, the window was examining the traitor especially, although his parents were visible, too.

Koume had crawled to his feet, and had sported a knife in her hands, raising it to Link's own.

"Use it! Save your family!" she croaked.

Without thinking, Link took the knife, and with a yell he lunged to the window and flung the knife in the direction of the traitor.

He watched. And his heart stopped.

It was not by an arrow that his brave father was killed.

The look of death on his face… the fear and agony in his mother's eyes… the confusion and crying of his infant self… and then history repeated itself in the mirror with her running into the woods. Then, the window's light began to dwindle, and then it dimmed more and more until it was but a floating orb, and then vanished into nothing.

Silence fell upon the room. Not even the spirits of the temple made any noise. Nabooru sat frightened, processing all she saw. Link suddenly fell to his knees, bereft of any rationality and common sense, with the two sisters chuckling at him.

Koume, nearest to him, spoke with an icy tongue, "You fool… no matter if you are the Hero of Time, my lad… you cannot change what has already happened… no man, king or hero, has that power…" she was grinning, however.

Kotake lingered closer. "Only our son… who is now a supreme being… could help you…"

"Ask him…"

"He may have pity…"

"Relinquish your Master Sword… you cannot change fate."

The words petrified Link. He could not decide. He could not move.

The two sisters were tempting him more and more, and the more they said it the more Link really wanted to agree with them. They kept saying, "Go to Ganondorf. Go to Ganondorf!"

They echoed in his brain, and echoed and echoed and echoed; never ending, never stopping, and—

KCHLING, KCHLING.

The two sisters' hypnosis was cut short. Literally. Link blinked a few times, now gazing upon Nabooru, holding a bloodied scimitar over the slain bodies of the two-fold witch.

The Gerudo princess stood silent. Then, she dropped her scimitar, and simultaneous fell to her knees, weeping.

Now free from the hypnosis, Link crawled over to her and took Nabooru in his arms. She wrapped her arms around him, crying into his shoulder.

"That w-witch! That WITCH!" she cursed, her nails digging into Link's shoulders. "Sh-s-s—" her voice trembled from the emotions coursing through her soul, "That w-w-DEMON destroyed my family, and made me do her will. I had no free will!"

Link quickly took off a glove, and began stroking the princess' hair, trying to comfort her.

"All those people… my people… women who still had free will… people who threatened the witch… I was the executioner under her will… I killed them, but I had no control…! Those poor women!"

Link listened, still trying to comfort her. The pain she had to suffer over and over again would never leave her until she spoke of it, as if face-to-face with the demon inside her.

"I…I must be evil! I could not stop such evil from happening!" she cried.

Link listened no more. He pulled her away and looked in her eyes. He shook her, forcing her to look at him. She had to know.

And she listened. Intently. At first, she did not want to believe. It could not have been true. No, none of it. But Link was right.

"…yes… you are right…" she admitted, sniffing. "I was not in control of myself… but I still hold myself partly responsible for their deaths. And… that WITCH is to blame. But that is over, now. My people are free… I will do whatever it takes to amend the pains which have been suffered by many. I will help you, Link. I have a scarred spirit, but a strong now. I am, indeed, the Sage of Spirits, for my spirit has been strengthened by the pain and suffering.

"…and you ARE the Hero of Time, Link. The sisters were right: you cannot change what has already happened. To do so, would be godly, indeed. But you are chosen to be our hero, because there is still time to save the present and future, and to preserve the past. The past is what makes us. It's what has made me. It's what has made you, well, you, Link. To change that would destroy you. Therefore… remember the past, and HONOR it. Hate it if you must, but ENDURE IT. You have to if you wish to save the future. Please, Link. As your second to last Sage, I beseech you. Save us."

The Sapling told Link that his family's history was not grand but honorable, having been raised in a line of soldiers who died for the ones they loved, for the nation they honored, and for the future they hoped. As they died for what they wished could be for their loved ones, so would Link for the rest of the world.

* * *

_END_


End file.
